Colette Jaffe and her Multi Righe patterned linens.
After 25 years in the luxury linen market, working in Milan for Next in Home and Pratesi, Minnesota native Colette Jaffe decided to start her own line of luxury linens and accessories, and headed home to launch it.
She determined her line would break the rules of bedding. “I was in that luxury linen market for so many years, in that white and beige world, and I am color!” she says, gesturing at bold, colorful shapes in the dress she’s wearing. “My whole life is color.”
Jaffe’s sheets, shams, and duvet covers, made in Tuscany of long-staple Egyptian cotton, are available in delicious shades and incorporate detailed, colorful embroidery. Her signature patterns are the Multi Righe, a rainbow of threads fashioned into multiple lines of embroidery, and CJ, a takeoff on the iconic Greek key pattern.
The CJ pattern—and her logo—began taking shape years ago, when a friend sent her a drawing of two interlocking C’s, saying, “One day, when you have your own linen company, you need to use this.” Says Jaffe: “At that time I never thought I’d have my own linen company, but I saved it on my computer. When I decided to do this, I found it.” She played around with it to make it horizontal—a better design for linens—and ended up with “CJ.” “It looks like a Greek key—one of the top two best-selling designs in the linen world,” she says.
Colette Jaffe (the line) debuted at MartinPatrick3 in Minneapolis’s North Loop in June, with a shop-within-a-shop as attention grabbing as the colorful linens. Eight patterns in vivid shades beckon customers to creatively mix and match, while a bed hung from the ceiling—the linens cunningly attached—shows off Jaffe’s signature CJ design.
Jaffe loves it: “I’m about breaking every tradition there is,” she says. colettejaffe.com
By Chris Lee
Photos courtesy of Colette Jaffe
